CAUTION! Check Your Credit Card Charges

[Phog Allen]

Gents, for the first time in my life I think my credit card information has been hacked. Today I logged into my credit union's online banking and as a matter of habit I checked the credit card they issued me. I am carrying a small balance on it and like to make sure my online payment to them cleared. It had. On a sheer lark I decided to look at 'pending transactions'. Imagine my surprise when I see a $106.11 charge to of all companies, FedeX. Huh? I haven't bought anything from FeEx nor used them to deliver any packages. So the phone tag routine stared. I immediately called the credit union. Yes, there was a legitimate looking authorisation from FedEx. Legitimate I says? Well to them anyway. You cannot dispute a charge that has not cleared. So of course I then had to call FedEx and actually give them my credit card number over the phone(I felt really great about that, <sarcasm off> ) so they could look into it. I have to say one thing for FedEx. They wasted NO TIME in getting to my issue. From the time I placed the call to the generic phone number on their website til I was speaking to a financial rep was moments. Good for them. Anyroad, she put me on hold for about three minutes and came back and told me the charge was made from some city in California with 'valley' in the name of it. I cannot remember since there are a zillion cities with the word valley in their name. She said it was a shipping charge for a package going from California to South Carolna. I guess it was just convenience the led someone to use my credit card number since I live directly in the middle of the States. The package had not left yet so she was reporting it to that station as a fraudulent charge and to cancel it.

Call me jaded but I have a sneaking hunch this involved shipping for a participant on some online auction site. That is PURE SPECULATION on my part. It could just as easily been an honest mistake though I doubt it. If someone used the number online then almost certainly they had to provide the security numbers on the back of the card. Since that card resides in Kansas I think I am pretty safe in assuming it is fraud. Even if it was just the mistake of a card user entering the wrong number by a digit to the same as mine, there is still the issue of the security digits. I told FedEx and my credit union I would wait a day or two before asking the credit union to cancel the card and send a new one. The troubling aspect is the pirates may very well have my personal information as well though I suspect someone just managed to filch credit card numbers. So do yourselves a favour and call your card issuers or check them online and make sure your card is not being misused. They actually encourage you to do this. Most of these cards carry a $50 maximum allowable liability for you in case of fraud but who wants to deal with it? And if your card issuer eats a big charge, guess what? We all pay down the line. Sad to say it but there are just too many people with no morals at all. History of the world and all that.

Cheers, Todd

 

[Phog Allen]

Gents, I should have mentioned this in the original post but with the Christmas season upon us this sort of stuff runs rampant. Don't let illicit charges escape your scrutiny.

 

[ChefJohnBoy-ardee]

When I had my debit card number taken it was during the Holidays. Chase took care of it after I filled out the paperwork.

 

[rxonmymind]

I remember getting a call once while I was filling gas in my auto. I was asked if I had just charged/bought a 50" in Hong Kong. I assured them I had not They thanked me and immediately contacted the merchant to cancel the order. Pretty cool.

 

[Toothpick]

It's sad but we've all probably got stories like this to tell. I had to get a new bankcard twice because of phishing. The bank was alerted when a charge for $0.01 was debited on my card and they locked up the card and canceled it instantly. Props to them....but I had to find out when I tried to use the card and it wouldn't work. It wasn't until I called them that I found out and had to request a new card. Twice this happened, 2 different cards.

 

[redrako]

Todd,

Thanks for bringing an important issue to our attention.

The two credit cards that i use, have a feature that I signed up for, where each new transaction immediately generates an email notification to a gmail account that I solely use for those cards. Look around your creditors web site, or give them a call to find out how to access such alerts.

 

[AABCDS]

I've had my debit card with the same bank used fradulently twice. The first time was an order at giggle.com and the second time was with newegg.com. I caught the second charge while it was still pending and Newegg cancelled the order. I had zero liability both times.

I also check all of my accounts nearly everyday.

 

[Phog Allen]

Redrako, good call.

Cheers, Todd

 

[captaincaveman]

I would also call FedEx and find out who was the recipient of that delivery.

This!

 

[SIG9]

Not to throw a wrench into things but is there a chance that your spouse or SWMBO could have bought something for you for Christmas and naturally didn't say anything because she wanted to surprise you?

 

[Phog Allen]

SIG9, that thought entered my mind quickly but two things made it a non-issue. First, we do not live in South Carolina nor do we know anyone who does. Second, I went straight to the missus and asked her if she has any inkling of what was going on. She said no. And yes lads, I will call FedEx and ask them. And receive stony silence.

Last year my daughter's bank card was fraudulently charged twice in two days for over $300 dollars to T-Mobile. She was in a state of panic. Calling the credit union elicited the same response as I got. Unless we tell them it is a fraudulent charge, and let it post, they cannot reverse it. They were happy to once the charge appeared(trust me, this cu is really good to us) but cannot give you any information other than what merchant authorised the charge. So they reversed the first charge immediately upon posting. Since the other was authrorised/pending they suggested we call T-Mobile direct and let them know what was going on. My daughter went to the local store and told them what was happening. They immediately got hold of T-Mobile billing, reported the fraud, and promptly had it stopped. Next suggestion was to file police report but sorry, they would not provide the name of the party who charged the amount to T-Mobile. If she wanted to know that the police would have to provide a subpoena for the records. You see, the 'customer' was protected by privacy laws. Until the law called them a criminal they had just as much protection as you do. Much will be the same if I call FedEx and ask them for the charging party in South Carolina. They only have my word the charge is fraudulent. They have exactly zero evidence the charging party did it purposefully. If they disclose their name they likely could be liable for any defamation or damages the 'victim' suffers. Crappy deal but I get it that these companies hands are tied.

Tell you what I am going to do though. Most banks offer a service to provide you with temporary credit card numbers. Once the transaction is complete the number is useless. I will be looking into this service. I have no idea how this will work with things like my Amazon video and buying account, not to mention my recurring Netflix charges. We shall soon find out.

Cheers, Todd

 

[OMEN]

I check my balance multiple times during the week. I'm pretty careful. My bank would obviously give the money back and then PayPal I'm sure would too if anything happened there. I only use companies I know as well.

 

[KQY61]

Hi,

To head off such problems, I use a service called Shop Safe from BoA. They generate new CC numbers for all online use. I can specify an amount and a valid time limit for each. Additionally, once used with a given merchant account, the generated number is then valid only for that account.

As an example, say I want to buy some goodies from West Coast Shaving. I log into my BoA account first, and use Shop Safe. I enter a limit amount and a number of months for this to be valid. The service then generates a new credit card number for me. I then enter the new number on the WCS checkout and now they have a number which is not the one on my physical card. Once WCS processes that number, it becomes linked with the WCS merchant account number and is now good for use only with WCS.

I can always change the limit amount and validity date on the generated card number whenever I want, so that particular number can be used indefinitely with that merchant. And, each online merchant gets their own number. Should a number escape a vendor, it will not work anywhere else.

Very handy. Now, I do not know how many CC companies offer such a service, but doubt that BoA is the only one.

Stan

 

[captaincaveman]

^I used to have an MBNA account before they were bought by BofA and ShopSafe was great. I wish I had a feature like that now.

 

[AABCDS]

Shop Safe sounds awesome!

 

[Phog Allen]

Stan, I think my credit union offers this service. It is what I was speaking of in my last post. Sort of a dummy number that has limited use. Frauds will always find a way to steal, even if it is from their grandmother but these little steps help to keep the wolves from the door. Stay tuned to find out what happens today or tomorrow. If my guess is right, FedEx will have already nixed the charge and short of a police subpoena(which ain't happening with their limited resources) it's the last I will ever hear of it.

Cheers, Todd

 

[Mick]

I always try to use Paypal with my credit card as the payment source. All of the charges are listed as PayPal + other party's account name.

this makes it easy to locate odd ball charges directly from a merchant as they stand out when they do not start with PayPal as the charge.

Using Paypal means I never enter my credit card info online. Paypal is the paying agent and they bill my credit card internally with the bank. My card # stays invisible to the merchant as they only see the payment from Paypal

 

[captaincaveman]

Also, Paypal is one more layer of protection between the world and your money. You can dispute at Paypal level sometimes before trying to dispute at credit card level.

 

[realdog4]

I have bought and sold many things over the web but I have never even come close to shipping something that would cost $106.00. Do what you can to protect yourself. Cancel your card and be very happy that you did not get charged the for the contents of whatever FedEx was about to ship. The contents of that package must have weighed a ton and perhaps worth a great deal of money.

I deleted my earlier post because after some reflection, I realized that I had at one time been accidently charged by a company who had my credit card # on file. It was not fraud but an accident. I contacted the company and they cleared everything up. They were also very apologetic. This may or may not be fraud.

Sadly, you may never know what truly transpired, but your troubling experience should put us all on alert.

Take care.

 

[Phog Allen]

UPDATE; Gents, this gets worse. Today I checked my credit card account to see if the fraudulent charges had disappeared. They had not but there was another pending charge for the same FedEx facility for over $109. Time to act. I called the card issuer and cancelled it and ordered a replacement. Just got done giving the info to police to file a case number. Oi. Hopefully this is the end of it but who knows? I suspect because the charges were 'authorised' they will accompany the current balance to the new card. Seems the deal with waiting til a charge actually clears before you can contest it is pretty much standard. So we shall see. I will most certainly be looking into the virtual numbers from now on. Do check with any recurring billing you have. Some of them like Google Wallet will NOT accept virtual card numbers.

Cheers, Todd